Duong Huong - The Zenith

“Don’t believe that guy, he’s well known for fraud. Those who lent him money have yet to get a penny back. If you want to help, help me here.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, did you hear that? We are old friends, but when it comes to women, friendship is for nothing.”

The chattering continued while Miss Ngan withdrew to the kitchen to boil water for tea and bring more cakes and candies to offer the guests. People sat around past midnight. It had been two years that his spacious house had been dark. Now it regained the once familiar warm atmosphere. Even though conversations were bursting like firecrackers, the neighbors’ eyes searched around for his sons. Quy was not there, neither was the youngest, Quynh. If it had been someone else, there would be some snide questions put, such as:

“Where did the oldest and the youngest masters go? Not back yet?”

“The family adds a new mouth, so where did everyone go?”

“Today is the day to welcome the stepmother; it’s proper for the sons to make tea, open cigarettes, and invite the neighbors over.”

Villagers do not lack oblique and twisted ways. But because Mr. Quang had high status and because poor people in the community were indebted to him in more than a hundred ways, not just twenty or thirty, all kept in their throats any word pickled in vinegar and hot peppers.

That night, on their way home, people blurted out:

“The older son doesn’t bother to attend; the youngest fled. This family will soon be a mess.”

“A mess around Mr. Quang — impossible. One look at his face tells you all you need to know. One like that wouldn’t even blink if his house were on fire.”

“Baloney! Even with a steel heart one can’t eat when children revolt!”

“Let’s see who’s right! You won’t have to wait long. Either today or tomorrow, what is good will emerge. Who’ll take my bet?”

There was no need to bet, for on the next day, everyone saw Chairman Quy come to visit his father. He loudly knocked on the door. Annoyed, Mr. Quang asked:

“Who makes such a ruckus?”

“Your son.”

“Go away, I’m still sleeping.”

“Dad, open the door. I have something important to say.”

“Nothing needs to be said this early. I’m just back from far away, I want to lie down and rest my back.”

“Dad, wake up. I have—”

“This is my house, I can sleep as long as I wish.”

“But I have to go to work in the village office.”

“Going to work is your business, sleep is mine.”

Chairman Quy stood for a while in front of the closed wooden door, his face intensely red. Then he had to give up and leave.

The neighbors held their breath as they overheard the dialogue between father and son, missing no sentence or word. Older men and women with salt-and-pepper hair fixated on such a rare village melodrama, knowing that the play would have many acts to come.

The next day, the neighbors puttered around, working gardens, picking beans or peanuts, sorting corn — finding any tiny job that allowed them to follow every sound that came from Mr. Quang’s house. They saw his doors open out really late: was it nine thirty, ten, or even noon? Probably around then.

“Old Quang is now a city person. Country people don’t dare sleep that late.”

“Country or city, one has only one head, two arms, two legs, and a third one dangling among the long hairs. In your sixties, even if you are as strong as a bear, you can pound a young wife with hips like that only once and then you will need ten hours to get your breath back.”

“Hey, Mrs. Tam, listen to your vulgar husband talk dirty!”

“Not just my old man, every one of you drools looking at Miss Ngan. One thing though: none of you can compare with Mr. Quang. You all are moldy chopsticks. Moldy chopsticks can’t be used with a red lacquer tray.”

“Silly woman! Admit it: you’re a moldy, plain wood tray.”

“Of course I’ll admit it! If I were not such a moldy tray I would never put up with those old moldy chopsticks all my life.”

“You clever broad! Tonight you’ll hear from me!”

This conversation took place during the noon meal, when the neighbors were eating while glancing at the garden on the other side to see if Chairman Quy had come again. But he had not. One could only hear a rooster crowing, then afterward Miss Ngan laughing: a rather strange laugh, both worldly and childish at the same time, with something utterly fresh like spring flowers, the laughter of a woman who has just turned eighteen. Then Mr. Quang’s voice in the kitchen. Most likely both were cooking; only the two of them because the youngest son, Quynh, had gone to his maternal grandmother’s house down in the lower section of the village. Half an hour later, Miss Ngan came first carrying a tray, and Mr. Quang followed with a bottle of medicinal wine, clearly the scene of a honeymoon. They ate their meal in the main sitting room and not in the kitchen as everyone else does. Wealth creates such habits.

The neighbors had to wait patiently until close to the evening meal before seeing Quy return. Mr. Quang and Miss Ngan were cleaning up the five storerooms in the compound used to keep household goods and provisions. Energetically, they were carrying out to the patio a heap of jute bags to sort out those which could still be used for holding grain for the horse or hay. Quy crossed the yard, his face grimacing:

“I want to talk to you, Dad.”

Mr. Quang looked at his son and hardened his voice:

“When you want to talk, you go inside a house. When you want to enter a house, you must salute the owner before crossing the threshold. You are a chairman, the head of a village, but you don’t even know the most basic courtesies and polite manners. Who can you lead?”

“I did greet you, Father.”

“In this house, besides me there is my wife. Before, your mother was my wife. Now she is dead and I have married Miss Ngan. She is mistress of this house.”

“I do not have a mother of such a young kind.”

“Ah, you do not want a mother who is young, but I do. I married a wife for myself, not for you.”

“You can marry anyone you want, but you should look all around you first. Your head now has hair of two colors.”

“I do not need you to teach me. I do what I want.”

“But, as the oldest son, I carry on the family’s honor and importance.”

“The oldest or youngest son in this family makes no difference. My hands brought in everything. I have never relied on any child. Since my marriage, I provided you with a house; when your mother was ill, she ate up all the wealth, but you — the heir to the family’s pride — did you ever help me with even the leg of a cow or one hundredweight of pork?”

Quy could say nothing.

“Not a cup of rice, not a penny, not a piece of cloth…not even a piece of candy. Do I tell the truth or do I make things up for you? Everything came from my own hands. This family survives thanks to my own sweat and tears. You were not filial enough to give your mother even one meal; you did not give your shoulder to help me with even one kilo of rice; so don’t boast that you are the future guardian of this family. Open your eyes to what’s going on: What kind of eldest son and family leader only digs for food as you do?

Again, Quy could say nothing.

“You turn mute, with a stiff throat; you dare not talk back. Because for all this time, it was us who subsidized, who took care of you and your wife; never was the reverse true. You are the kind who always opens his mouth but never gets his hands dirty. Just know your place and stay there. Don’t talk about your being the oldest to scare me. Best for you to walk out of my sight!”

The discussion happened right in the middle of the patio. Mr. Quang didn’t even bother to lower his voice, but raised it to release his anger. Some said he intentionally spoke loudly so that the neighbors could not help but hear him, so that from then on whoever would wag a tongue would hold it in and close it with a top, not itching to interfere with his affairs. Some thought he pounded his son into submission to shame him deep in his soul so that, in this house, no one would have permission to cross him; and also that this son would forgo any dream of an inheritance. For a long time, his oldest son, Quy — as principal heir to the lineage — had dreamed of this spacious house both night and day. After his wife gave birth to two girls, Quy determined to have a son even if he had to suffer Party discipline for two years and wait two years to be assigned the position of village chairman. Mr. Quang had long known that the length and breadth of the compound, the field and the garden, the beehives, all the obvious and hidden assets that people inside and outside the family always tried to ferret out, were objects of Quy’s greed. Some also suspected that, for a while, he had considered every aspect and one day would put all his cards on the table, revealing the calculations that had long since been added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided in his head. This remarriage provided the occasion to express all these considerations.